This patchset adds execveat(2) for x86, and is derived from Meredydd
Luff's patch from Sept 2012 (https://lkml.org/lkml/2012/9/11/528).
The primary aim of adding an execveat syscall is to allow an
implementation of fexecve(3) that does not rely on the /proc filesystem,
at least for executables (rather than scripts). The current glibc version
of fexecve(3) is implemented via /proc, which causes problems in sandboxed
or otherwise restricted environments.
Given the desire for a /proc-free fexecve() implementation, HPA suggested
(https://lkml.org/lkml/2006/7/11/556) that an execveat(2) syscall would be
an appropriate generalization.
Also, having a new syscall means that it can take a flags argument without
back-compatibility concerns. The current implementation just defines the
AT_EMPTY_PATH and AT_SYMLINK_NOFOLLOW flags, but other flags could be
added in future -- for example, flags for new namespaces (as suggested at
https://lkml.org/lkml/2006/7/11/474).
Related history:
- https://lkml.org/lkml/2006/12/27/123 is an example of someone
realizing that fexecve() is likely to fail in a chroot environment.
- http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=514043 covered
documenting the /proc requirement of fexecve(3) in its manpage, to
"prevent other people from wasting their time".
- https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=241609 described a
problem where a process that did setuid() could not fexecve()
because it no longer had access to /proc/self/fd; this has since
been fixed.
This patch (of 4):
Add a new execveat(2) system call. execveat() is to execve() as openat()
is to open(): it takes a file descriptor that refers to a directory, and
resolves the filename relative to that.
In addition, if the filename is empty and AT_EMPTY_PATH is specified,
execveat() executes the file to which the file descriptor refers. This
replicates the functionality of fexecve(), which is a system call in other
UNIXen, but in Linux glibc it depends on opening "/proc/self/fd/<fd>" (and
so relies on /proc being mounted).
The filename fed to the executed program as argv[0] (or the name of the
script fed to a script interpreter) will be of the form "/dev/fd/<fd>"
(for an empty filename) or "/dev/fd/<fd>/<filename>", effectively
reflecting how the executable was found. This does however mean that
execution of a script in a /proc-less environment won't work; also, script
execution via an O_CLOEXEC file descriptor fails (as the file will not be
accessible after exec).
Based on patches by Meredydd Luff.
Signed-off-by: David Drysdale <drysdale@google.com>
Cc: Meredydd Luff <meredydd@senatehouse.org>
Cc: Shuah Khan <shuah.kh@samsung.com>
Cc: "Eric W. Biederman" <ebiederm@xmission.com>
Cc: Andy Lutomirski <luto@amacapital.net>
Cc: Alexander Viro <viro@zeniv.linux.org.uk>
Cc: Thomas Gleixner <tglx@linutronix.de>
Cc: Ingo Molnar <mingo@redhat.com>
Cc: "H. Peter Anvin" <hpa@zytor.com>
Cc: Kees Cook <keescook@chromium.org>
Cc: Arnd Bergmann <arnd@arndb.de>
Cc: Rich Felker <dalias@aerifal.cx>
Cc: Christoph Hellwig <hch@infradead.org>
Cc: Michael Kerrisk <mtk.manpages@gmail.com>
Signed-off-by: Andrew Morton <akpm@linux-foundation.org>
Signed-off-by: Linus Torvalds <torvalds@linux-foundation.org>